As technology advances in the semiconductor field, devices such as processors incorporate ever-increasing amounts of circuitry. Over time, processor designs have evolved from a collection of independent integrated circuits (ICs), to a single integrated circuit, to multicore processors that include multiple processor cores within a single IC package. As time goes on, ever greater numbers of cores and related circuitry are being incorporated into processors and other semiconductors.
Multicore processors are being extended to include additional functionality by incorporation of other functional units within the processor. Typically, a multicore processor has a common power budget and a common thermal budget. The power budget is set so that a specified power level, at least as averaged over time, is not exceeded. The thermal budget is set such that a thermal throttle point, which is a highest allowable temperature at which the processor can safely operate, is not exceeded. Although these common budgets exist, mechanisms to adaptively share the budgets across the wide variety of circuitry present in a processor does not exist.